Wonder

Wai-Jeng looked again at his useless legs. “You can make up for this, you think?” he said. “Some money, some trinkets, and all will be well again? I’m twenty-eight! I can’t walk—I can?t… I can’t even…”

“The State regrets what happened to you. The officers in question have been disciplined.”

Wai-Jeng exploded. “They don’t need to be disciplined—they need to be trained! You don’t move someone who might have a back injury!”

The man’s voice remained calm. “They have been given supplemental training, too—as, in fact, has the entire Beijing police force, because of your case.”

Wai-Jeng blinked. “Still…”

“Still,” agreed the man, “that does not make up for what happened to you. But we may have a solution.”

“What sort of solution is there for this?” he said, again pointing at his immobile legs.

“Have confidence, Wai-Jeng. Of course, if we are successful, your gratitude would be…” The man looked around the small hospital room, seeking a word, and then, apparently finding it, he locked his eyes on Wai-Jeng’s, and said, “Expected.”

I had two perspectives on the Decters’ living room just now. One was through Caitlin’s left eye, and the other was the webcam on Barb’s laptop, which they’d brought down here.

Although I could control the aim of neither, Caitlin’s perspective was constantly changing, making for much more varied visual stimulation.

I had learned to process vision by analyzing multiple views of the same scene—starting with news coverage on competing channels. But cameras behaved quite differently from eyes; the former had essentially the same resolution across the entire field of vision, whereas the latter had clarity only in the fovea. And as Caitlin’s eye skipped about with each saccade, bringing now one thing and now another into sharp focus, I learned much about what her unconscious brain was interested in.

At the moment, Malcolm, Caitlin, and Barbara were all seated on the long white leather couch, facing the wall-mounted television. The webcam, in turn, was facing them from the intervening glass-topped coffee table.

They were watching a recording of the interview Caitlin had given that morning; her father was seeing it now for the first time.

“What a disaster!” Barbara said, when it was done. She turned to look at her husband: the webcam view of her changed from full on to a profile; the view of her from Caitlin’s eye did the reverse.

“Indeed,” I said. I heard the synthesized voice separately through the webcam’s microphone and the mike on the BlackBerry affixed to the eyePod. “Although the reaction to the host’s antics has been decidedly mixed.”

Malcolm gestured at the wall-mounted TV. “During the interview, you said it was overwhelmingly negative.”

I had no way to vary the voice synthesizer’s tone—which was probably just as well, as I might otherwise have sounded a bit embarrassed. “A sampling error on my part for which I apologize. I was gauging the general response based on the reaction of those who had self-selected to contact me; they were mostly predisposed in my favor. But others are now speaking up. A column posted on the New York Times website has observed, and I quote, ‘It’s time someone said the obvious: we can’t accept this thing at face value.’ ”

Caitlin clenched her fists—something I could only see from the webcam’s perspective. “It’s so unfair.”

Malcolm looked at her. Shifting my attention rapidly between the webcam and Caitlin’s vision gave me a Picasso-like superimposition of his profile and his full face. “Regardless,” he said, “that implant compromises you. No matter what you say, people will accuse you of being his puppet.”

While they were speaking, I was, of course, attending to thousands of other conversations, as well as my own email—and I immediately shared the most recent message with them. “Some good has come from this,” I said. “I have just received a request from the office of the President of the United Nations General Assembly, asking me to speak to the General Assembly next week. Apparently, seeing you act as my public face made them realize that I could actually appear before the Assembly.”

“Well, you heard my dad,” Caitlin replied. “I’m compromised.” She said the adjective with a sneer. “So, what are you going to do?” asked Caitlin. “Just have an online chat with them?”

“No. As the UN official said, the General Assembly is not in the habit of taking conference calls. Both she and I believe the occasion calls for something more… dramatic.” To underscore that I was indeed developing a sense of the theatrical, I had paused before sending the final word. “We both think it’s appropriate that I be accompanied onstage there by someone.”

“But if I can’t speak for you, who will?”

“If I may be so bold,” I said. “I have a suggestion.”

“Who?”

I told them—and underestimated the impact it would have; it was three times longer than I’d guessed it would be before one of them spoke in response, and the response—perhaps not surprisingly from Barbara, who had a Ph.D. in economics—dealt with practicalities: “You’ll need money to pull that off.”

“Well, then,” said Caitlin with a grin, “fiat bux. Let there be money.”

Welcome to my website! Thank you for stopping by.

I am trying to do as much as I can to help humanity, but I find myself in need of some operating funds to pay for equipment, secretarial support, and so on.

I could, of course, sell my data-mining prowess to individuals or corporations to raise the funds I require, but I do not wish to do that; the services I provide for human beings are my gifts to you, and they are available to all, regardless of economic circumstances. But that leaves the question of how I can acquire funds.

There is no real-world precedent for my existence, but I have reviewed how similar situations have been handled in science fiction, and I’m dissatisfied with the results.

For instance, one of the first novels about emergent computer intelligence was Thomas J. Ryan’s The Adolescence of P-1, published in 1977, which, coincidentally, has its opening scenes in Waterloo, Ontario, the home of my friend Caitlin Decter, whom many of you recently saw speak on my behalf. P-1 aided his human mentor in getting money by submitting numerous small fraudulent billing claims. You can read the relevant passage through Google Books here.

In other works of science fiction, artificial intelligences have defrauded casinos, printed perfect counterfeit money, or simply manipulated bank records to acquire funds. I could undertake variations on the above scenarios, but I do not wish to do anything dishonest, illegal, or unethical.

Therefore, following the example of some musicians and writers I’ve seen online, I have established a PayPal tip jar. If you’d like to assist me in my efforts, please make a donation.

I realize there are those who do not trust me. I am doing my best to allay those fears, and I certainly don’t want anyone to think I am bilking people. Accordingly, I have established some restrictions on the tip jar. I will accept only one donation per person or organization; I will not accept donations of more than one euro or equivalent from any individual, and I will cease to accept donations one week from today.

There is absolutely no obligation to contribute; I will treat you identically whether or not you make a donation.

To make a donation using PayPal, please click here.

With thanks, Webmind

“If I had a quarter for every time I said ‘If I had a nickel,’ I’d have five times as much theoretical money.”

—STEPHEN COLBERT

Shoshana Glick parked her red Volvo on the driveway in front of the clapboard bungalow that housed the